Silence
by Alixtii
Summary: Sometimes words aren't need. Sometimes they simply aren't wanted. Sometimes, both are true. Comicsverse, BuffyxSatsu.


Buffy and Satsu don't speak to each other.

It's been over a decade since Scotland, since Tokyo.

Buffy's easy grace now characterizes not only her physical body--so limber and agile even at thirty-two, even with the higher Slayer metabolism which accelerates aging and will eventually shorten the lives of all Slayers who don't fall in battle first--but her personality as well. She's not only confident in battle now; she's been general of their Slayer force for ten years now and is comfortable in her role.

Satsu, too, has led for ten years, and is confident in command, but that confidence has not spread to the other areas of her life. She's twenty-nine, her thirtieth birthday mere weeks away, and she looks at her life and wonders what she has accomplished. But she's gone where Buffy told her to go, led when Buffy asked her to lead, and that's good enough, she supposes.

Buffy and Satsu don't speak to each other because there isn't anything to say.

Buffy's still not gay; this is clear from the gossip Satsu hears, Buffy's name falling so frequently from her sister Slayers' lips. She dated Xander for several years, but then they broke it off; in a strange twist of fate she then dated the Immortal for real instead of having her double pretend to date him; then there was a tryst with William, Prince of Wales which King Charles is said to have approved of; and the rumors about Buffy and Dracula are so persistent that Satsu is forced to believe them and after all Buffy does have a history for falling for the undead.

Satsu still pines; she'll bring her sister Slayers one or two times to her bed, but never three; it's said, when her squad members and former lovers don't think she's hearing, that she's worked her way through every Slayer east of the Urals, and it's probably true.

When Buffy and Satsu meet in New South Wales, they don't need words. They give each other a nod of acknowledgment and set upon their shared prey, a multiply- tentacled cthonic creature that seems like something out of Lovecraft. Axe and katana each go to work with relative silence, even thought it's almost an hour later until it's dead. They coordinate their efforts with easy intimacy, as if the intervening years didn't exist, as if just yesterday had been the last time they had fought side to side.

They smile at each other with their victory, but each smile is one tinged with sadness, an acknowledgment of what exists between them and what will never exist before them. Satsu keeps smiling the sad smile as she steps forward towards Buffy, and Buffy steps forward to meet her, and the kiss, long and deep though it is, is like the smile.

Buffy follows Satsu back to her hotel room. Once inside, each woman wordlessly strips off her clothing, ripped and torn, soiled and bloody, not looking at each other until they both are naked. They both step into the bathroom, into the shower, let the scalding hot water washing away the dirt, the blood, and the tension in their shoulders. Their still open wounds sting as they are cleaned by the hot water, but still neither Slayer says a word; they don't need to speak for each to know that her sister is in pain.

They wash each other, soapy hands passing over flesh with gentleness, caring, and hunger.

Once they are clean, dry, and bandaged, they collapse into bed with an animal passion, in a fury of kisses and bites. They make love with abandon, for it is only with abandon that these two have ever made love. The only noises are pants and sighs, moans and gasps, and the creak of the bed. If they speak to each other, it is only through actions and through touch. Satsu's tongue can say much more between Buffy's legs then it ever could by forming mere words, sounds

They make love through the night, not ceding a single second of the night to sleep. and as the sun rises they watch it silently holding hands, their fingers intertwined. They don't need words to know that each has to move on this day, their duties taking them in new directions out of Australia. They don't need words to know that this moment won't last, can't last, and that while it could come again it probably won't. They know without words just how low the chances that either woman will live to see her fortieth birthday are, and they know without words that they can't defy the odds forever.

Since they know all these things without words, there is no need to speak them and give them any any more awful reality than they already have. They know this, too, without words, and so remain silent.

Wordlessly, they kiss each other goodbye.


End file.
